Empty streets in a nation ripped asunder

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Spain is waking up to the idea that the Madrid bombings have changed life for ever

IT WAS meant to be a summer of celebration for Madrid: a Royal wedding, with pomp and pageantry to rival the finest that London could provide, attracting tens of thousands of tourists who would also crowd the city’s revitalised galleries and museums and soak up the vibrant atmosphere of one of Europe’s finest capitals.

The wedding of Prince Felipe de Borbon, the heir to the Spanish throne, to Letizia Ortiz, a divorced television journalist, would firmly establish a thoroughly modern monarchy, just one generation after the end of the Franco era. And the smooth transfer of power from Prime Minister